More cases of US police brutality emerge as protests continue against murder of George Floyd
11 June 2020
Even as nationwide protests against police brutality extend into their third week, new reports of homicidal violence by US police continue to emerge.
Last week, police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, shot and critically injured Max Mitnick after responding to a “welfare check” call from the victim’s father. This is not the first time a call to the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) from a concerned family member has had deadly consequences. Two months ago, an APD officer shot and killed 52-year-old Valente Acosta-Bustillos after responding to a welfare check call from his daughter. Both Mitnick and Acosta-Bustillos struggled with mental health issues.
This latest report of police violence seems particularly egregious since there was no criminal complaint. According to the APD’s own press release, the officers responded to a call last Thursday from Mitnick’s father. Mitnick, a young man in his mid-20s, had been diagnosed with a mental health condition and, according to his father, had expressed a desire to be taken to the hospital for fear that he might injure his parents.
When the officers arrived at the suburban house, Mitnick met them in the yard and informed them that he would like to be taken to the hospital by his parents. The officers claim that after he walked back into the house they heard a woman scream, “Help, he’s got a knife.” On entering the house, they saw Mitnick come out of a bathroom towards them and shot him.
At a press conference last Thursday, APD Deputy Chief Harold Medina insisted that the officers on the scene had been trained in crisis intervention, without providing any details about the names of the officers involved in the shooting or whether they had been placed on administrative leave.
In the fatal police shooting two months ago of Acosta-Bustillos, lapel cameras released by the APD show what seems to be a pleasant conversation between one of the officers on the scene, Edgar Sandoval, and Acosta-Bustillos rapidly deteriorate, leading the latter to run back into the house and brandish a shovel he had been using for yard work. Sandoval responds by shooting and killing Acosta-Bustillos.
Predictably, the APD blamed the victim, claiming he threatened the officer’s life. Police noted that Acosta-Bustillos had an outstanding felony charge and had been arrested in December 2019 while suffering meth-induced paranoia.
At of this writing, neither of the two officers involved in the shooting has been placed on administrative leave.
The APD drew the attention of the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2014 for its use of excessive force after the well-publicized killings of people with mental disorders in the years prior. In 2010, Albuquerque police shot and killed Kenneth Ellis, a 25-year-old veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. In March 2014, two officers shot and killed James Boyd, a homeless man who had been diagnosed as having a schizo-affective disorder.
The latest incident demonstrates that the settlement arrived at between the DOJ and the APD is virtually meaningless.
Earlier this week, the New Jersey State Attorney’s office released audio and video clips related to another tragic police encounter that led to the shooting death of 28-year-old Maurice Gordon. The New York Times reports that the fatal encounter, which took place two days before the May 25 killing of George Floyd, was Gordon’s fourth encounter with the police within 30 hours, after a friend called 911 expressing concerns about his well-being and whereabouts.
A still from police footage of Maurice Gordon, who was shot and killed by police in New Jersey on May 23, 2020. (Image: New Jersey Attorney General’s Office)
Gordon, a Jamaican who moved to the US to work and study, was stopped in the early morning hours by New Jersey State Trooper Sgt. Randall Wetzel, after Gordon was caught driving southbound at 110 miles per hour on the Garden State Parkway. The footage shows what seems to be a calm, reasonable conversation between the two men about problems with Gordon’s car, with the officer asking him to move to the police vehicle as they wait for a tow truck.
Gordon, who was frisked for weapons, sat in the cruiser for 21 minutes before getting out. Sgt. Wetzel claimed after the shooting that Gordon tried to grab his gun and get into the police vehicle, which led to a struggle and the eventual killing. There were no other witnesses to the killing.
The Austin, Texas, Police Department released new video footage this week related to the murder of Javier Ambler in March 2019. The police initially pursued Ambler because he had not dimmed the lights on his Honda. After being chased for 20 minutes, Ambler stopped and exited the vehicle. According to the official account, he “did not immediately comply with the deputy’s verbal command.” This led two of the deputies to use their tasers to ensure compliance. Ambler’s arrest was being filmed for the A&E reality show, Live PD.
As reported in Vox, the Texas attorney general’s office euphemistically describes what unfolded as follows: “Once in custody, deputies noticed the driver was unresponsive. Deputies were unable to locate a pulse and began chest compressions until EMS arrived and took over life saving interventions.” The reality is far more grotesque.
The recently released video footage shows an apparently sober and unarmed Ambler on his stomach as officers try to handcuff him. Repeatedly calling the officers “sir,” Ambler can be heard telling them that he has congestive heart failure and that he is not resisting arrest.
One of the officers can be heard remarking, “I am pretty sure I just broke his finger,” as they place the handcuffs. Ambler can be heard repeating, “I can’t breathe.” The medical examiner later found that Ambler died because of “extensive restraint,” along with congestive heart failure and hypertensive cardiovascular disease.
THE REAL ISSUE ON COP CRIMES ARE COP UNIONS. THEY PROTECT THEIR
CRIMINAL COPS AND ALWAYS HAVE!
Blacks not the only victims of rogue cops
The videos below are of a 2014
incident in Independence, Missouri where former policeman Timothy N. Runnels
arrested Bryce Masters, a 17-year-old boy. The first video is two minutes
and is very disturbing, especially the ending. The second video is 54
minutes and includes the arrival on the scene of backup and ambulance.
The second video shows a brief split screen of what Masters shot of the
incident before Runnels tased him into cardiac arrest.
The incident
was covered in depth by The Intercept and by the website for Britain's Daily Mail. The incident was also covered
at Officer.com.
In 2018 in nearby Kansas City, the Star's Tony Rizzo reported: "Federal
prosecutors later charged Runnels criminally with violating Masters' civil
rights, and the former officer was sentenced in 2016 to four years in prison.
Runnels, 35, is scheduled to be released from custody in January 2020, according
to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons." Here's the only clear photo of Runnels I could find on the Net.
If you see him, steer clear.
Blacks are by
no means the only victims of police brutality. Police departments must do
a better job of identifying and quickly getting rid of any thugs on their
payrolls, but they're being protected by the police unions. We need our
police, but not the criminal rogues.
To watch the videos at YouTube, click
on these URLs:
Rather, it is a political maneuver designed
to
provide cover for Democratic governors
and
mayors who have overseen brutal police
attacks on protesters, not to mention the
pro-
police record of the Obama administration.
Democrats announce toothless police reform bill
9 June 2020
With a great deal of rhetoric accompanied by a political stunt,
the Democratic congressional leadership on Monday released its “Justice in
Policing 2020” bill.
Prior to the press conference to present the measure, more than
20 Democratic lawmakers, all wearing African kente cloths, knelt in the
Capitol’s Emancipation Hall for eight minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of
time fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee on the neck
of George Floyd, killing the 46-year-old African American worker.
The group of Democrats included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman
Karen Bass and senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris.
At the press conference, Bass, Pelosi, Schumer and other
sponsors of the bill repeatedly cited the nationwide mass demonstrations
against the murder of Floyd and touted their bill as a “transformational” and
“bold” attack on police violence and systemic racism.
But their statements and the token character
of the reforms included in the bill make clear
that the measure is nothing of the kind.
Rather, it is a political maneuver designed to
provide cover for Democratic governors and
mayors who have overseen brutal police
attacks on protesters, not to mention the pro-
police record of the Obama administration.
It is also aimed at containing and dissipating social
protests by workers and youth against not only racism and the fascistic Trump
administration, but also the social inequality, repression and poverty that are
embedded in the capitalist system and magnified by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Democrats are well aware that even their collection of mild
reforms has no chance of being passed by the Republican-controlled Senate or
signed into law by President Trump. Just minutes after the Democrats’ press
conference, Trump, who later met behind closed doors with law enforcement
officials, tweeted: “This year has seen the lowest crime numbers in our
Country’s recorded history, and now the Radical Left Democrats want to Defund
and Abandon our Police. Sorry, I want LAW & ORDER!”
The major provisions of the bill include:
* Changes in the wording of statutes dealing with police abuse
that somewhat lower the legal threshold for obtaining a conviction. The bill
alters the federal standard for criminal police behavior from “willfully”
violating the constitutional rights of a victim to doing so “knowingly or with
reckless disregard.”
It also changes the standard for determining whether the use of
force is justified from whether it is “reasonable” to whether it is
“necessary.”
* It somewhat limits, but does not eliminate, the application of
“qualified immunity” to police offenders. For the past 15 years, the Supreme
Court has interpreted the “qualified immunity” doctrine, which applies to public
officials pursuing their official duties, to vacate civil suits and throw out
criminal cases against police who break the law or use unwarranted force.
Legal researchers Amir H. Ali and Emily Clark argued in 2019
that “qualified immunity permits law enforcement and other government officials
to violate people’s constitutional rights with virtual impunity.” The Obama
administration repeatedly intervened in Supreme Court cases to uphold the
blanket use of “qualified immunity” to shield cops from civil suits or criminal
prosecution.
* The bill limits, but does not eliminate, the transfer of
military equipment to the police. Obama continued the practice of militarizing
police departments with billions of dollars worth of military-grade weapons,
armored vehicles, attack helicopters, drones and other tactical weapons.
* The bill creates a national register of police misconduct.
* It bans chokeholds.
* It establishes a grant program allowing—but not
requiring—state attorneys general to create an independent process to
investigate misconduct or excessive force.
* It requires body cameras for federal uniformed police officers
and dashboard cameras for marked federal police vehicles. These federal forces
comprise only a small fraction of the 687,000 full-time law enforcement
officers in the US. The bill also mandates that state and local agencies use
federal funds to “ensure” the use of body and dashboard cameras.
* The bill bans racial profiling.
* It grants subpoena powers to the civil rights division of the
Justice Department for “pattern and practice” investigations of police
departments.
* It makes lynching a federal hate crime.
At the press conference, Bass, who represents parts of South Los
Angeles, went out of her way to profess her support for the police. “I am
certain that police officers, professionals who risk their lives every day, are
deeply concerned about their profession and do not want to work in an
environment that requires their silence when they know a fellow officer is
abusing the public,” she said.
She went on to present police officers as the unwitting victims
of poor training and policing practices and a lack of “transparency.”
Pelosi called the bill a “transformational” and “structural
change,” ran through its main provisions, and concluded by saying, “Police
brutality is a heartbreaking reflection of an entrenched system of racial
injustice in America.” She called the bill a “first step,” promising “more to
come.”
New York Senator Schumer, known as the senator from Wall Street,
referred nervously to the massive demonstrations that have continued in New
York City and in cities and towns across the US for nearly two weeks, noting in
particular their multi-racial and multi-ethnic diversity.
He then proceeded to define the issue of police violence
exclusively in racial terms, saying, “The poison of racism affects more than
just our criminal justice system. It runs much deeper than that. There are
racial disparities in housing and health care, education, the economy, jobs,
income and wealth and COVID has only placed a magnifying glass on them.”
This is a continuation of the narrative that has been employed
by the ruling class, and particularly that faction represented by the
Democratic Party, for more than 50 years, ever since the massive urban
rebellions of the 1960s. Beginning with the Kerner Commission Report of 1968,
there has been a concerted effort to portray the essential social category in
America as race, rather than class.
BLOG EDITOR: THE DEMOCRAT PARTY RELIED ON THE BLACK SLAVE CLASS
UNTIL IT BECAME APPARENT THAT THE INVADING ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS WOULD MAKE A
BETTER CLASS OF SLAVES.
ASK YOURSELF WHAT BARACK OBAMA EVER DID FOR BLACK AMERICA AS HE
SABOTAGED HOMELAND SECURITY TO FLOOD AMERICAN WITH DEM VOTING 'CHEAP' LABOR
MEXICANS.
This was designed from the outset to divert attention from the
class exploitation upon which capitalism is based and within which racism
serves as a weapon to divide the working class. All of the African-American
lawmakers at the Democrats’ press conference are wealthy beneficiaries of
policies that have elevated a thin layer of blacks into the upper-middle class
and the bourgeoisie, while leaving black workers, and the working class as a
whole, in far worse circumstances than in the 1960s.
A reporter asked if the sponsors of the “Justice in Policing
Act” supported calls for “defunding” the police that have been embraced by some
local Democratic officials, who have generally defined it as diverting a small
portion of the police budget to social services. Bass had previously made clear
she did not support such calls and the campaign of Joe Biden released a
statement Monday disavowing the demand.
Responding to the question, Pelosi said, “We want to work with
our police departments. There are many who take pride in their work, and we
want to be able to make sure the focus is on them.” She went on to warn against
getting “into these questions that may come by the small minds of some.”
Government-employee
unions—including those for police—put the power and interests of their workers
above the public interest.
June 8, 2020
George
Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, and the ensuing protests and urban riots, have
brought police departments under enormous scrutiny and widespread
hostility. Liberals and conservatives alike have
identified police unions as a barrier to salutary reform. They aren’t wrong—and
union contracts are one reason why reforming police departments is so hard. But
while Left and Right may agree about police unions, those on the left would not
make a broader connection: that the problems posed by police unions in
particular are similar to those with public-sector unions in general.
Liberal
sympathy for organized labor doesn’t extend to police unions because cops are
seen as the “bad proletariat.” Liberals try to paint the problems of police
unions as unique to law enforcement, rather than endemic to unionized
government. In the wake of the Floyd killing, some have called for the
abolition of police forces—and, in Minneapolis, the city council has announced that it will “begin
the process” of disbanding the city’s police department. On the other side,
conservative aversion to government unions often stops short of police unions
because conservatives worry that criticism of cop unions will be mistaken for
criticism of the police. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, for example, excluded
police unions from Act 10, which dramatically weakened public-sector unions in
his state.
The
deeper problem is that unionization and collective bargaining have made it
almost impossible to bring about meaningful reform of state and local
government, policing included. The consequences are huge, because the inability
to reform government means that performance suffers and public trust in key
institutions declines.
Collective
bargaining is not fundamentally about products or services—whether public safety,
education, automobiles, or anything else—but about the power and interests of
workers and management. Public-sector unions are in the business of winning
better salaries and benefits, protecting job security, and advancing their
members’ occupational interests. Organizational incentives, and state law,
ensure that union leaders prioritize these amenities.
Police
and public schools are the institutions of government with which Americans most
frequently engage. Police protect our most vulnerable citizens and allow
communities to thrive. Schools offer opportunities for social mobility. There
are thousands of heroic and devoted police officers and school teachers. But
unionization and collective bargaining have enmeshed these two crucial
government functions in red tape that too often protects the inept and abusive.
Collective
bargaining in the public-safety and educational sectors strips government
executives of the tools they need to supervise and manage their workforces
effectively. Police chiefs and school principals struggle to weed out poor
performers. A few bad actors can undermine an entire organizational culture.
Upholding
the law presents unique challenges, and police can have adversarial
relationships with the communities whom they serve. Consequently, police-union
contracts contain myriad formal rules and procedures designed to protect police
officers from the inevitable complaints—some justified, others not—that arise
in the course of duty. Many big-city union
contracts limit
officer interrogation procedures after alleged wrongdoing, mandate the deletion
of disciplinary records, and require cumbersome grievance proceedings.
Language
spelling out these procedures often makes up the largest
part of any contract—it’s roughly 20 percent of the New York City police officers’
contract,
for example. These provisions allow both police unions and individual officers
to challenge personnel actions by their superiors. If the matter can’t be
settled by appealing up the chain of command, it is sent to binding
arbitration. Arbitrators often split the difference and avoid dismissing
officers. For instance, in 2018, a Seattle arbitrator reinstated—with back
pay—an officer fired for punching a handcuffed, intoxicated woman. The nuisance
involved in dealing with grievances, and the prospect that an appeal will
reverse the outcome anyway, can dissuade supervisors from initiating discipline
procedures against poor performers.
Police
officers accused of misconduct are, consequently, rarely disciplined or
punished insofar as investigations are long, highly regulated, and allow for
frequent appeals. One study found that the
worst 5 percent of officers in the Chicago Police Department accounted for a
third of all civilian complaints. But few were ever disciplined or removed.
Jason Van Dyke, the officer who killed an unarmed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald
in 2014, was among the officers with the most civilian complaints. But he
remained on active duty.
Teachers
also enjoy extensive job protections that make them nearly impossible to fire.
State laws and union contracts create a labyrinth of paperwork and processes.
In most school districts, over 95 percent of teachers receive satisfactory
ratings and get tenure (which means more job protections) after three years on
the job. Many principals don’t even bother trying to dismiss bad teachers
because of the costs involved. One
study found
that dismissing a veteran teacher for poor performance takes a minimum of two
years; in Los Angeles and San Francisco, it takes at least five years.
Even
teachers accused of sexual
misconduct rarely
lose their jobs. Under many state laws or union contracts, an independent
investigator—usually an independent law firm or the school superintendent—first
vets any accusation. Then the case goes before an arbitrator chosen by the teachers’
union and school district. Usually arbitrators’ decisions split the difference
and result in suspensions or fines rather than dismissal.
As a
result of such protections, New York City infamously put hundreds of teachers
in “rubber
rooms,”
where they were paid full salaries and accrued benefits but could not interact
with kids. This “program” cost the city some $800 million a year. Unable to end
it fully, the city converted it into the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR), which
continued to pay teachers not to teach to the tune of $105 million a year. In
2019, 930
teachers held spots in the ATR—perhaps 25 of whom were there because of charges
of misconduct—costing the city nearly $100 million in salaries and benefits.
Within
the confines of collective bargaining, public executives need to push for a
recovery of management rights. Only then might school principals and police
chiefs have a fighting chance of improving their organizations. Going further,
states may want to revisit the extent to which work rules that establish
disciplinary procedures should even be the subject of collective bargaining.
Greater accountability in state and local government would be better for
everyone, good teachers and cops included. Weeding out poor performers will
improve public services, protect communities, boost organizational morale, and
spur upward mobility. It’s time to put the mission of public agencies ahead of
job protections for public workers.
A timeline of abuse by the New York Police
Department
By Sam Dalton
11 June 2020
The
following is a reconstruction of events that took place in the Bronx over the
evening of June 4 into the morning of June 5 based on an interview with Rips, a
recent college graduate who was arrested at the protest. The events of the
evening were later described by New York City police commissioner Dermot Shea
described as “executed nearly flawlessly.”
Rips, originally from San Diego, attended the Bronx protest with
her boyfriend George, who is a restaurant worker originally from New Orleans
and with two other friends. Despite having committed no crime, the couple was
held overnight in Queens and Bronx precincts respectively. Following their
arrest, Rips and George shared their story on social media. This led to
thousands of dollars of donations overnight. Despite the arrest, the young
couple has continued to support and take part in the ongoing protests against
police violence throughout New York City.
7:00 p.m.:
“We arrived in the Bronx at around 7 p.m. and right out of the
station we found the protest. I was struck by who was present, there were lots
of young people and also a lot of healthcare workers. Most striking was that
the protesters were from all kinds of backgrounds. I’ve been at protests every
day since they started in New York and although I’d seen some tension, I had no
idea of how dangerous this was about to get.”
7:30 p.m.:
The group began walking south until it reached around 136th and
Jefferson Avenue.
“Out of nowhere, a group of around 50 fully armored police
officers on bikes started to surround us. We turned around but there was this
wall of officers in full riot gear. They started to close us in, they kettled
us in like you see in videos of protesters online. We tried to escape but they
blocked off every way out. While they were closing in someone pointed to the
top of a high-rise building on the street, there was a sniper up there watching
over us. We looked around and they had snipers on every roof. This police
helicopter was also coming lower and lower overhead. People realized they couldn’t
get out, so we started to chant ‘Let us go’ and ‘We are peaceful, what are
you?’ over and over.”
7:45 p.m.:
Rips, corroborated by other reports on social media, told the
WSWS that the New York Police Department (NYPD) started their attack before the
citywide 8 p.m. curfew.
“On one side the cop-bikers put their bicycles together in a
wall pushing us in closer and closer. One cop bashed his bike against my
boyfriend’s leg. He couldn’t get treatment until the next day and he’s got an
infection now. Once the protesters were tightly squeezed together the cops
started to throw tear gas and mace. There were children in the crowd, and you
could hear them screaming.
“People started to shout, ‘I can’t breathe.’ This kid next to me
looked like he was beginning to faint. The tear gas was so strong, breathing
was really hard. We started to see the police move in around us and my
boyfriend grabbed hold of me...Then this captain, I remember he had a bright
white shirt in the middle of the smog, pushed him to the ground so hard so he
couldn’t hold on, and then another grabbed me and handcuffed me from behind.
The last time I saw George he was being beaten down by a group of officers, I
was so scared for him. I didn’t find out he was safe until the next afternoon.
“I was shocked at their [police] violence. It was like the red
mist descended, they were just hitting everyone, men, women, children, black,
white, brown, it didn’t matter who you were they were just coming for you
because you were protesting. I just remember that the police looked like they
were really enjoying it. There were cops shaking with excitement who just
couldn’t wait to get in on the action.”
8:00 p.m.:
Rips described how when the protesters were handcuffed in zip
ties, they were lined up along the sidewalk with their arms behind their backs.
“All of the kids around me were in a lot of pain, they put our
arms in this position to deliberately hurt us, and the zip ties were so tight I
could see everyone’s hands going purple. While I was being arrested the officer
pulled off my mask. Then they had us lined up on the sidewalk and were taking
pictures with us like we were trophy animals.” At no point during the evening
was Rips, or anyone else she saw get arrested, read their Miranda rights or
allowed access to a phone.
9:00 p.m.:
Featured articles on the
police murder of George Floyd
After an hour on the sidewalk the protesters were loaded onto
corrections buses. While 20 to 25 men were pushed into the back of the bus,
Rips and three other women were forced into a separate section.
“There were four of us. We were pushed into netted metal cages.
They were so small I couldn’t stand up without hitting my head. I couldn’t even
put my arms out in front of me. I was crammed in with three other girls for
over four hours. The guys in the back of the bus kept pleading with the police
officers to at least let the girls out. It was also insanely hot. The girl in
front of me had been struck with a billy club on the head and her wound was
open. She passed out at least once.
“There was this one officer called Nixon, he kept coming up to
us and mocking us, saying that these little holes were the only air we deserve.
He was black and I was kind of shocked to see a black officer be so aggressive
and violent towards protestors who were outraged at the killing of a black man
[George Floyd].”
The bus drove its passengers from the Bronx to the Kew Gardens
precinct in Queens for processing. The passengers were left in the bus without
air conditioning, water, or medical treatment for their injuries for four
hours.
June 5
1:00 a.m.:
The bus began to be unloaded and the protesters were forced to
line up outside. In the early hours of the morning, the New York area was hit
by substantial rainfall.
“They held us in the pouring rain for another three hours. I was
only wearing a tank top. They said we had to wait outside while they cleared
the cells for us. I went from being so hot in the bus that I felt like I
couldn’t breathe, to being freezing. We were all shaking, still in our zip-tie
handcuffs. There was some scaffolding by the precinct that the police officers
were using to stay dry. We asked the officers if we get out of the rain and
line up under the cover, but they said we had to stay where we were.”
3:00 a.m.:
Rips told the WSWS about one particularly disturbing incident.
After two hours of standing in the rain, and at least seven without water, the
protesters lined up were trying to drink the rainwater to quench their thirst.
“One protester told an officer that in her backpack there were a
few bottles of water and asked if they could be shared among all of us. So, the
cop went and got the bag and opened it up. He grabbed a bottle and opened it as
if he was about to hand it to us, but then he just stared straight at us and
started to pour all of it out onto the street.”
4:00 a.m.:
An hour after this incident, the NYPD finally allowed the
lined-up protesters to come inside.
“They took us to the basement cells that were covered in mold. I
was put in a cell with around thirty other women. It was so cold down there we
had to huddle to keep warm. My boyfriend told me later that in the Bronx they
kept it really hot in his cell. Whatever they did, they weren’t going to let us
be comfortable for one second.
“They made us take our shoes off before were entered the cells.
In mine, there were no bathroom facilities we could use. A couple of women in
the cell had to pee on the floor. Some of the women were even menstruating and
asked the female guards if they could get some sanitary products. Their only
response was to laugh at us and call us b**ches.
“I remember there was an anemic girl who was put in a cell by
herself. I was worried about her. I think the police singled her out because
she told them to stop lying when they tried to claim another protestor’s empty
metal water bottle could be classified as a weapon.”
9:00 a.m.:
“They refused to tell us the time the whole night, but I think
by around 9 a.m. they came around to give us some food. We were all really
hungry and dehydrated, some people were even passing out again. They gave us
the smallest apples I have ever seen, they were dirty as well, and a little
piece of moldy bread.”
11:00 a.m.:
The excuse given by the NYPD officers for the delays in
processing were that only one computer at the precinct was working.
Nonetheless, by around 11 a.m. all but four of the protesters had been
released. Rips was one of the ones to remain inside.
“I think they kept the loudest of us in there for an hour longer
than anyone else. I was eventually charged with a Class D misdemeanor. Most
people got summons but they just randomly selected some of us in the lineup to
get misdemeanors. I now have to attend a court date in October, with potential
prison time and a $3,000 fine. I don’t have $3,000, I have no idea what I am
going to do if they fine me and then there’s the risk I am going to go to
prison for peacefully protesting, I can’t believe it!”
2:30 p.m.:
Nineteen hours after heavily armed officers began surrounding
the group of peaceful protesters, Rips was finally released. She was welcomed
by a jail support team as she left Kew Gardens precinct.
“There were lawyers there who helped me understand what had just
happened and how they could help me challenge the charges. The most important
thing was that there was food and water. Someone there even drove me home. All
for free. These teams are so important, I was so desperate and confused when I
left but they were so supportive and managed to calm me down. ”
The unity of international protesters and
sympathizers
On the afternoon of June 5, Rips and her boyfriend soon shared
their experiences on social media, leading to donations from across the world
of over $4,000. Rips and her boyfriend used part of the money to help support
other protesters by providing medical equipment such as gauzes, Band-Aids,
gauzes, antiseptics, masks, hand sanitizer, and eye drops.
“My boyfriend works in a small café and we called his boss to
ask if we could use their kitchen to make sandwiches for the protesters. He
agreed so we put a call out on social media for people to come and help package
the equipment and make the sandwiches. The response was amazing. People I have
never met showed up, people I knew from way back who I never thought cared
about politics even came. That day we had thirty people helping us.”
Fearing a repeat of the events of the night of June 4, Rips has
restricted her involvement in protests to the distribution of aid and food to
other protesters. Nonetheless, two days after her arrest she described being
“stiff with fear” as she saw two NYPD officers pointing to her and starring
threateningly as she distributed sandwiches. WSWS asked Rips why she continued
to protest and what she thought of calls from the Democratic Party to enact
“transformational” and “systemic” police reform.
“The police system goes hand in hand with the capitalist system,
minority communities are deliberately left underfunded. They want to divide us.
They want us to think we don’t like each other and fear each other, and the
people are not letting that happen right now. I have seen every type of person in
these protests, not just students, not just brown and black, all types are
saying enough is enough.
“I used to be a democrat and a liberal, but now I don’t believe
in these parties. People at the protest were shouting ‘f*ck Trump’, but also
f*ck Biden. They are all slaves to capitalism until that changes politics will
never work. Democrats are still capitalists. People like de Blasio show this.
For all his talk he is still a slave to capitalism. Even the mayor in
Minneapolis [Jacob Frey] showed he couldn’t detach from the system.”
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